Gino Vallejo
Published: 2019-03-31
Total Pages: 139
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This is a psychedelic odyssey through dreams of love and death. Comprising eighty poems by Gino Vallejo, Shades of Blue: The Journey of Awakening is truly a trip—one brought fully to life by the haunting artwork of Stephanie LeVasseur. From Bethlehem to Byzantium, from ancient Egypt to modern Iraq, from cosmic shores to home and heart, we drift along as selfless spirits, probing fallen empires’ rubble, cursing despotism’s war, extolling family, praising God—surrendering to passion. Seductively cryptic and trenchant in turn, Vallejo bridges the dark extremes—man’s genesis and apocalypse, freedom and fascism, heaven and hell, the fruits of ardor and thorns of greed—while scrutinizing timeless truths that, sunken, lie between. Intimate and sprawling at once, defiant of form but blended by beauty, each selection—cadenced hymn or cold lament—is singular, and glistening with implication, no one scene is fixed in place. The words change shape at second glance, as layered meanings mix and meld. A labyrinth of yearning leads to paradisal vistas. Bespeaking angst and tenderness and decrying those who tie the trammels, beckoning salvation’s bliss, the trek will be a certain joy for William Blake enthusiasts. En route, we sing a song of earth and promises beyond.